The Bookseller is an excellent site for UK publishing news and they have a rather important article on digital book sales in the UK out today. Are Digital Books really 5% of total book sales? Here are the key details regarding digital book sales – 27% increase over the last two years. 20% from 2008. £150 million in revenue in 2009. Publishers who reported accounted for 67% of the industry by turnover. £150 million represents 4 to 5%... 

So we all know there’s a big April 18th launch of the Nook at Best Buy stores. Except BestBuy.com is already selling the Nook for $259.99 today - 4 days early. The shipping estimate says you can get it as early as tomorrow if you pay $25 for express shipping. Store pickup is listed as ‘not available’. The whole point of having it at Best Buy is for users to be able to play around with it so online availability doesn’t... 

A lot’s happening in the world of eReaders. Apple’s buying Ads on Google for Kindle related searches In the US – search for ‘Kindle’ to find Apple and B&N advertising. In Canada – search for ‘Kindle’ to find Apple and Sony advertising. Here are what the ads say – New iPad iBooks App Read and buy books in sharp, rich color. Easy…  Read More →

This post is a quick comparison of the themes you find at Techmeme (a site aggregating tech news) and MediaGazer  (a site aggregating media news). It’s just what’s on the pages – so the only bias that comes in is my interpretation of the topics. Fee free to interpret the news items as you see fit. What stories is MediaGazer finding? Today we have – Felix…  Read More →

Andrys at Kindle World has an excellent post covering all the different angles of the Amazon vs Publisher pricing wars . It’s an excellent article and it ends with a link to another excellent article. The Value of Customers of Good Intent Business Insider has a chart that’s a very interesting (although unverified) look at how much each unique visitor to a site is worth – Google leads with $18 earned per year per monthly unique... 

Here’s some eReader, Kindle news for the mid of March 2010 – Interview with new eInk CEO – Color eInk by end 2010, early 2011 Xconomy Boston  has an interview with the new CEO of eInk, T. H. Peng, and Mr. CEO talks about the timeline for color eInk – … customers want to launch our color e-paper product by the end of this year or the beginning of 2011. Hanvon … will design a color e-book reader using E Ink’s... 

Finally, John Grisham’s books are available for the Kindle. You can check out the page listing all available John Grisham Books  at the Kindle Store. Amazon also include this snippet – Long before his name became synonymous with the modern legal thriller, John Grisham was working 60-70 hours a week at a small Mississippi law practice, squeezing in time between the office and courtroom recesses to…  Read More →

Take a look at the Kindle related news for the day and you could be forgiven for thinking we’re still in 2008. In no particular order here are the big news items shown for today - Kindle for Android arriving soon.  Will ‘enriched ebooks’ work?  Book Industry faces a new chapter. Article panning an eReader. Article saying new browser won’t save Kindle and tablets will kill it. Reading on the e-nemy. Reading on the... 

Amazon just got a big win as its 1-click patent has been confirmed by the US Patent and Trademark Office after a 4 year re-examination. It’s a pretty big deal as it means that any company that wants to add convenient 1-click purchases will have to license 1-click from Amazon. Here’s a snippet from Apple’s 1-click ordering page – 1-Click is a convenient feature that allows you to purchase anything at the Apple Store with... 

Let’s start with eMarketer’s take on the Association of American Publishers’  figures on ebook sales. These numbers haven’t been publicized much – perhaps since Publishers would rather see ebooks and ereaders die. eBook Sales nearly tripled from 2008 to 2009 Here’s what the numbers from AAP show – eBook Sales almost Triple in 2009 The article asks whether paid content will put publishing back in the... 

First, the Kindle book deals – 1 cent preorder of Stopping Time, Part 1 by Melissa Marr. It’s a pre-order and it might just be a chapter. However, it might also be a novel or novella. Primary Victim  by Christopher Cihlar is just $1 and reviewed well. It’s zooming up the charts. The Complete Adventures of Alice in Wonderland (with a TOC) is just $1. Wish I had more time to maintain an indie author section that was up... 

Another week with lots of little bits of Kindle and eReader news (and no big news) – DocStoc, an online document sharing site in the mold of Scribd, launched an online document store  - much of the motivation seems to be eReaders. DocStoc supposedly focuses on businesses, entrepreneurs, and professional documents. There’s news that Apple’s iPad will be sold at BestBuy. That would certainly help sales.   Colin Steele... 

TechFlash covers the news that Microsoft and Amazon have struck a patent licensing deal that includes Kindle and Linux – Microsoft says the deal grants Amazon patent-related “coverage” for its use of open-source and proprietary technologies in its Kindle e-reader, and its use of Linux-based computer servers. It’s very interesting news because – It involves Amazon paying Microsoft some money.  It’s probably... 

Here are some interesting Kindle related snippets – Two books that were $1 are now free – Amberville (with free bonus material) by Tim Davys, and Dead Witch Walking by Kim Harrison. In an article in Esquire Charles Schwab has high praise for Amazon – I don’t know whether you like Amazon or not, but they’ve done an incredible thing for the consumer. Brought the cost of books down, the distribution, the Kindle. It... 

Motoko Rich at The New York Times  has some very interesting news – Apple inserted provisions requiring publishers to discount e-book prices on best sellers — so that $12.99-to-$14.99 range was merely a ceiling; prices for some titles could be lower, even as low as Amazon’s $9.99. Essentially, Apple wants the flexibility to offer lower prices for the hottest books What NY Times is saying is that Apple inserted provisions that give...